Tearing Down Fool's Paradise
by sunnie.side.down
Summary: During their final battle at the Valley of the End, Naruto dies and Sasuke doesn't. With nothing holding him in Konoha, Sasuke leaves and wanders the Land of Fire searching for...something... [T for some swearing]


Sasuke could not move. Everything was in pain. His eyes burned, his chakra was dangerously low, his left arm was cold and numb. The world faded in and out of focus. His ears rang and everything was muffled like cotton was stuffed in his ears. The loud crash of water from the waterfall was just a dull roar. The wind blew sprays of water into his face. Sasuke tried to focus on the splashes. He vaguely thought that he should move or check over his wounds or do something. But at the moment, all of that was too much work. Sasuke wanted nothing more than to sleep.

"Hey bastard. You dead yet?" Naruto's voice drifted through the fog in Sasuke's mind. It sounded weak be it from all the yelling he had done earlier or from the concussion Sasuke likely had distorting his hearing, he didn't know.

"Hn," was all Sasuke could muster in reply.

"Thought so," Naruto chuckled and then coughed. It was wet and rough. Naruto's normally strong thrum of chakra now flickered weakly.

"Hey Sasuke…" Naruto started talking some more. Sasuke tried to focus on his voice because whatever Naruto was saying, it sounded like something that Sasuke needed to hear. "…find something…" Sasuke couldn't concentrate. "…so long hating…" What was Naruto saying? "…feeling right now…" Sasuke couldn't move.

"Do it for me 'kay?" Naruto coughed again and then was quiet.

"Hn?" Sasuke tried.

Sasuke listen harder for Naruto's breathing. He concentrated on his surroundings to try and feel Naruto's chakra. Nothing.

"…Naruto?"

Two chakra signatures appeared: Sakura and Kakashi.

"Sakura," Sasuke coughed. "Naruto…" There was an edge of desperation in his voice as Sakura and Kakashi came into his blurry field of vision. He watched as they glanced at him and then headed towards where Naruto lie not even a foot away. Sakura leaned over Naruto with a green glowing hand but Sasuke knew it was already too late.

* * *

The funeral came and went in a blur. Sasuke was allowed to attend, but he was placed under heavy guard. His injuries were healed to the bare minimum. Bleeding was stopped and bones were placed. After that, everything had to heal the old fashioned way. Sasuke wasn't going to complain. They were low on medics and there were patients with worse injuries than his. He deserved every gash, every broken bone he had anyway. His arm was a nasty red stump that itched to move what wasn't there any longer. Seals had been placed on him to restrict his Sharingan and Rinnegan along with his chakra. Sakura and Lee stood by his side as guards. Anbu were not far as backup. All in all, he was about as powerful as a normal civilian. But Sasuke didn't care. All of the precautions were unnecessary. Sasuke was not going to attack or run away. He was too tired for any of that anymore.

Kakashi stood before the gathered ninja. It was going to be a small funeral for the ninja who were close to Naruto, and even some who were not but had respect for him from the war. Gaara had made a special trip from Suna to be here. The other Kage's could not make it but sent their condolences. Later there would be a special ceremony for the rest of Konoha. The civilians who have finally started to see Naruto as the man he was and not as a monster.

Kakashi cleared his throat. His one eye scanned the crowd before him. It landed on Sasuke and Sasuke saw how tired Kakashi looked. The suffering the man has gone through, the sadness, the guilt, the shame at how things went so wrong for so long. The war was over, Kaguya was stopped, but his student, his friend, his comrade, his son was dead. Sasuke looked away.

"Three weeks ago, Konoha lost her most unpredictable ninja…"

* * *

Sasuke was fitted with a prosthetic arm. He didn't really care if he got one or not, but it did make helping out with the reconstruction of Konoha easier. It was awkward and Sasuke didn't like it. If he could, he would have done with out it.

Since unsealing him was not option in the eyes of the council, Sasuke was given over to a carpenter that needed an assistant. It was hard work. Sasuke got yelled at time and again for forgetting a hammer, losing nails, cracking wood. But Sasuke was a fast learner even without his Sharingan. Within the first couple of weeks, Sasuke was proficient enough that the carpenter would leave harder tasks like repairing a wall or building complex furniture to him.

The work was completed eventually and Sasuke no longer had anything to do. He knew he was unwanted in the village. He felt the stares from ninja and civilians. He heard the whispers. He saw the damage to his apartment. The only reason anyone would even want him in the village was because of Naruto, but Naruto was dead and here Sasuke was.

Kakashi stared at Sasuke from behind his desk. Papers towered and threatened to fall and create a mess. He looked the same as he did the day of Naruto's funeral, if not more tired. More bags under his eyes. His hair looked greyer than usual. "Sasuke…" Kakashi began.

"I want to leave," Sasuke said before Kakashi could continue.

Kakashi sighed, "I thought you'd come here eventually." He shuffled a few papers around. "You know you're basically wanted in every nation. You've openly threatened the lives of all the Kages, you're a former missing nin, you were affiliated with Orochimaru and Akatsuki. Those are just to name a few. But..." Sasuke waited patiently for Kakashi to continue. Kakashi rubbed his face and aged thirty years. "But you did help release the Infinite Tsukuyomi… And I can't really stop you can I since Naruto... Well Naurto wouldn't want you to be imprisoned. I'll work something out with the other nations, but there will be restrictions, okay?"

Kakashi narrowed his eyes and Sasuke silently nodded.

A few weeks later found Sasuke standing outside the gates of Konoha. Kakashi and Sakura were there to see him off. Sasuke had a feeling that even his old team didn't really want him in the village either. Sasuke didn't feel bad leaving. Konoha hadn't been a home to Sasuke for a very long time, probably even before he had left when he was younger. There was nothing in Konoha to keep him there. Naruto was gone. Itachi was dead. Danzo was taken care of. Kakashi and Sakura weren't as close to him as before. Sasuke didn't belong in Konoha.

"Okay Sasuke. You know what you have to do?" Kakashi drawled. The conditions for Sasuke's freedom was that he had to send a hawk to Konoha with his location every week, if he missed one week he would be hunted down and maybe killed depending on what he was doing. The chakra restraints were taken off, but the seals for his eyes remained.

Sasuke replied with a silent nod.

Sakura came forward and embraced Sasuke. Sasuke didn't react. Sakura backed away and gave Sasuke a watery smile. "Take care okay? Send me a message if your arm messes up. I'll come right way."

Sasuke turned and walked away from Sakura and Kakashi. He wanted to leave but he didn't have a destination so Sasuke picked a direction and walked.

* * *

Sasuke wandered across the Land of Fire. At dawn he would wake and walk only to stop until it was too dark to see. He avoided villages and main roads as much as possible. He hunted for his food, bathed in rivers, and only went into towns when he really needed supplies. Every week he sent a hawk to Kakashi with his approximate location with a note on the direction he was headed. Besides that, he had not other communicaiotn with Konoha.

It was around noon on a clear day. Sasuke's feet were uncharacteriscicaly sore. He entered a small clearing surrounded by trees twenty times his height and with trunks too thick to reach his arms all the way around. There was a small cabin tucked in close to the trees. Sasuke concentrated and could not sense anyone in the immediate area. He walked over to the cabin. This was good place to take a break.

As Sasuke approached, he noticed that the cabin was run down. The walls were overgrown with vines, the grass around the cabin was long. The metal lock on the door was rusted and broke when Sasuke tried the knob. Sasuke was surprised by how modern the inside was. The inside was void of any furnishing but there was a kitchen and bathroom with working plumbing, a small open area with a fire place for what Sasuke assumed was supposed to be where the owners slept, and a few decent sized storage closets. The cabin even had electircal wire set up, but it was not connected to an electric grid, nor was there a generator anywhere Sasuke could see.

The inside was dusty and cobwebs covered every corner. Some floor boards were broken in places, some tiles in the kitchen cracked. By the looks of the water stains on the floor and walls, there was a leak in the cieling somewhere. The cabin had clearly been abandoned for a while, probably long before the war due to the condition it was in.

Sasuke went back outside and sat in the overgrown grass by the door. He soaked in the sun that peaked through the leaves of the trees. The cabin was in a small clearing, but the branches on the surrounding trees spread out so much that it shaded almost the entired area. It was peaceful Sasuke mused. It was a ways away from the nearest road, a river was just a couple miles walk, the place was like a hidden village –tucked away and unnoticed. Time passed. It was longer than the short break Sasuke said he was taking. Even then Sasuke did not move from his spot. The sun began to decend in the sky and Sasuke still sat. It was night and Sasuke stayed.

* * *

The next day Sasuke got up at dawn and continued his journey to nowhere. He wondered north for a few days, close to the borders of the country Takigakure was located. Sasuke could never remember the name or more like it was never important enough for him to remember. When he was nearing the borders he switched directions. He had thought about traveling through countries but the thought didn't last long because of the consequences of being a highly hated ninja traveling in foreign lands. So Sasuke stuck to the land of fire, it was a big country anyway.

Despite the land being mostly made up of forests, the areas around the borders held different landscapes. It was hard to tell the borders from one country to the next. The only way to know was from noticing how the hills slowly turned to mountains and then rivers were easier to come by and then it was the Land of Rivers. Or how the mild climate of the Land of Fire suddenly became more humid, the air thick with moisture, and then it was raining and it was the country home to Amegakure. Sasuke may have crossed borders a couple of time but it wasn't long until he realized and turned back. He had grown a sixth sense for when his country started and ended.

Sasuke swtched his wondering direction every couple of days and he somehow found himself back at the abandoned cabin. This time Sasuke explored the area more thoroughly. He checked the outside of the cabin and found that some of the siding was rotting. More than a few shingles on the roof were missing or broken. There were a few rusted tools lying around the back of the cabin. An axe lay next to a small pile of two or four logs. Upon further inspection, those were rotting too. Sasuke checked the inside again and concluded that no one had been there since he left a couple weeks back. Sasuke stayed the night and then left in the morning.

The cabin became a sort of base for Sasuke. He would travel and every so often he would return and stay night or two. He began to gather and leave supplies there, a plate, a couple ration bars, an extra pair of clothes. The electricity still didn't work and Sasuke still didn't quite trust the water, but it was convient to have a roof over his head every couple of weeks without having to pay for an inn.

Sasuke shook out his bedroll and dust flew into the air. He had swept once but that was weeks ago, and it wasn't his best sweeping job. He wasn't too concerned. Anything was better than what it used to be like.

He wondered around the cabin, placing his bedroll in one of the storage closets. In the kitchen he pulled out his one plate and brought it outside. There was a small fire pit that he lit with a breath of fire. From a storage scroll he pulled out a pot and ingredients to make a small breakfast.

The morning air was cool. Steam rose from the porridge and mingled with Sasuke's breath. A part of Sasuke's mind acknowledged the beauty of the place. The wonder of the towering trees, the softness of the grass, the quiet buzzing of insects, the ways the sunlight peaked the ought the leaves, how the sky would slowly turn from black to purple to red and orange to bright bright blue. The way the wind always seemed to laugh and bring with it a scent so familiar, but out of reach, so painful, so sad, so peaceful.

The other part of Sasuke's mind couldn't bring itself to care about any of that. That was the part of his mind that he listened to. From his experiences, Sasuke had discovered that it was easier not to feel. He was always so angry, full of hatred and that made him so tired. Happiness...Love... Those were things he didn't know how to feel any longer. So he tried to remain blank, calm, unmoving.

After eating, Sasuke brought his dirty dishes back into the cabin. He cleaned them using water from the sink. He trusted it to wash things but not to drink. Sasuke's left hand faltered as he was moving to set the plate on a small drying towel he had laid out on the counter. The plate clattered to the ground. Normally Sasuke's prosthetic arm gave him little trouble. When he was first getting used to it he would constantly drop things. He'd pick up a hammer only for it to slip through his fingers; he would pull on a door handle only for his fingers to give out resulting in him stumbling backwards. The arm worked the same way his real arm worked. Synthetic nerves in his prosthetic connected to his real nerves at his stump. It had the full range of motion his old arm had but it was slower, clumsier. The dexterity was not the same.

Sasuke stared at the plate and sighed before bending to pick it up. Calmly he set the plate on the towel. Calmly he dried his hands. Calmly he walked out of the cabin to a tree. Calmly he punched a hole through the trunk with his left arm.

The wood splintered, scratching Sasuke's arm as he drew back and punched again and again. Each time more aggressive. When there was a telling crack and a subtle tilt, Sasuke moved out of the was as the tree fell with a deafening crash. He then moved on the the next tree. He called up a Chidori and three trees fell with one swipe. He punched, he kicked, he- no. He didn't scream. The only noise came from the trees. Not even the birds or insects or other animals made noise.

Sasuke breathed hard when he finally collapsed. It wasn't even midday and he had destroyed the nice clearing the cabin was in. The cabin was still on the edge of the forest but the small clearing it used to be was now twenty times larger. Trees lay everywhere haphazardly. Their leaves no longer blocked the sun from the ground.

Sasuke didn't know what he was feeling. As he lay staring at the clear sky, he didn't feel any better from when he started his rampage. It was like something had boiled over in him and instead of turning down the heat, the lid was removed for a while only to be replaced again moments later. Something was burning inside Sasuke and he didn't like it.

Sakura found him in the same spot where he fell. The sun was on the other side of noon. Sasuke stared blankly into the sky. When he sensed her, he tracked her without moving as she climbed over the destruction.

"Long time no see, Sasuke," Sakura smiled over him. "Thought I'd check up on you. So how have you been?" Sasuke didn't even blink. Sakura rolled her eyes and nudged Sasuke's prosthetic arm with her foot. "Looks like you broke it, huh? I told you not to do anything..." She glanced around the clearing. "...too intense with it."

Sasuke sighed and sat up, forcing Sakura to take a step back when he stood. "It's still slow. I don't like it."

"Have you been doing the exercises I gave you?"

Sasuke stared hard at Sakura and she just laughed.

"Thought so. Why don't we go inside and I can take a look at it." Sakura didn't wait for Sasuke's response. She turned towards the cabin and walked. Sasuke followed soon after.

When they got inside, Sakura got to work. It was a simple fix. The chakra conductors, the wiring system that allows the prosthetic to access the user's chakra, were overloaded and burnt out. Since the conductors were down, the synthetic nerves didn't work either since they rely on the user's chakra to function. The conductors in Sasuke's arm weren't wired for high level jutsu so after a couple Chidoris, the arm was useless.

"If your arm was acting up, send me a message, don't wait until I decide it's time for me to track you down," Sakura scolded as she checked the flexibility of Sasuke's fingers.

"Hn."

"Don't 'hn' me! You know how much of a pain it was to find you? Thank god your hawks have been coming from the same area for the last couple of months. I wasnt looking forward to a nation wide search for you."

"You didn't have to come. I would have been fine..."

"Uh-huh," Sakura rolled her eyes. "I came for another reason too..." She grew quiet and Sasuke began to feel uncomfortable. Sakura still held his hand and gently bent and extended his fingers one by one and then curled them all into a fist and unfurled them. Sasuke waited.

"Well," she began. "When we were cleaning, Kakashi and I that is, when we were cleaning - this is right after you left by the way. Um when we were cleaning..." Sakura stopped and Sasuke waited for her to cotinue. He wanted her to hurry up and leave but he also didn't want her to say anything more. The sinking feeling in his gut didn't mash well with the simmering under his skin. It was giving him a headache.

Sakura breathed and focused her eyes on Sasuke's fingers. "When we were cleaning Naruto's apartment we found...a will." Sakura looked up into Sauke's eyes. Her eyes were bright green and a little shiny. Sasuke's betrayed no emotion. He didn't know why she was telling him this. He couldn't think of anything that Naruto would leave to him. They were kinda-not-really-but-still friends when they were younger, nothing else. "He left his plants to you."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow in confusion. Plants?

"Plants?" He voiced.

Sakura let go of Sasuke's hand and grabbed her bag. She pulled out two small pots and one medium sized pot. One of the small pots had a spiky ball in its soil. It looked like something Sasuke had seen in the Land of Wind the few times he had been in that area. A cactus of some sorts maybe? The other small pot hand a small tree. He remembered that some of the elderly members of his clan had kept trees like that one. They always made a fuss about them whenever Sasuke would be dumped at their houses when the rest of his family was busy. They always went on and on about a lost art and unappreciative younger generations. The larger pot held a green leafy plant. Sasuke had no idea what it was. In his mind it was categorized as generic plant. It didn't have any of the qualities of medical plants that he knew, nor any of the poisonous ones. It was just a plant.

From her bag Sakura also withdrew a scroll. Sasuke squinted at the familiarity of a mission scroll, a D-rank.

Sakura saw Sasuke's look and smiled. "Did you know Sasuke? That Naruto had actually set up a D-rank mission so that his plants would get watered when he was away? It's funny, the mission was still in circulation even after he...passed." Sakura handed the scroll to Sasuke. He took it delicately with his left hand. "It has all the instructions for taking care of the three plants. It shouldn't be too hard since it _was_ a D-rank."

"Hn."

Sakura stayed for about another hour to make sure everything was okay with Sasuke's arm and to make sure that he understood the instructions.

The next day at dawn, Sasuke left the cabin, left the plants, left the uncomfortable feelings that had crawled under his skin.

* * *

Sasuke returned to the clearing a few weeks later. The clearing was in the same state he had left it in. Sasuke walked into the cabin and his eyes were instantly drawn to the plant pots on the kitchen counter where Sakura had left them. Sasuke frowned. The cactus looked the same, the bonsai did too if not a little more on the yellow side, but the generic plant was in bad shape. The leaves were shriveled and drooping, the stems bent with the weight of the wilted leaves. It looked horrible. Something pinched in Sasuke's chest as he noticed the dry soils and the lack of direct sunlight on that particular part of counter. With some sort of guilt driving him, Sasuke picked up the scroll also left on the counter and went over the care instructions again. He found that the cactus was creatively named Saboten, the bonsai was named Kiko, and, Sasuke raised an eyebrow, the plant was named Mr. Ukki.

Sasuke found the cup he had stored in one of the kitchen cupboards and watered the plants. On a whim he took a sip of the left over water. When he didn't immdeately die, he supposed it wasn't so bad...

The next day as Sasuke was getting ready to leave again he stopped when he saw the still almost dead Mr. Ukki. It wasn't in much better shape. The soil was already dry again and probably wouldn't survive the time Sasuke would be gone for.

 _"Take care of them okay? Naruto really loved them..."_ Sakura's parting words drifted into Sasuke's head.

He sighed and dropped his bag. It would be too cumbersome to take them with him. So Sasuke stayed.

After lunch, Sasuke examined the clearing. It was truly a mess. Trees lay every which way, broken and charred. The grass was matted down and singed in some places. Some areas had small indents from the force of the trees collapsing. Sasuke got to work cleaning. He might as well if he was going to be there a while. At least until the plants looked a little better. It was half to stave off boredom, half for aesthetic purposes, but Sasuke liked to ignore the latter reason. He didn't care if it was pretty he told himself.

By the end of the day Sasuke had moved all the fallen trees to one side of the clearing. He grabbed the rusted axe and started to chop some of them for firewood. It was tiring work. The trees were heavy even with chakra inhanced muscles. Sasuke would have worked later into the evening but a rumbling in the distance and the overcast sky above forced him inside.

It rained that night and Sasuke found out where all the leaks in the cabin were, which was basically everywhere. Every surface of the cabin was covered with every container Sasuke had. Being inside the cabin was little better than being outside. Sasuke slept because he has slept in worse places, but he wasn't happy when he woke up cold and wet.

In the morning, Sasuke changed into a dry pair of clothes and left. Plants be damned.

* * *

He was wandering through a village a few days later. He was running low on cooking oil and he had a craving for some fresh tomatoes. He passed by a carpenter's shop and paused. Sasuke had no doubt that he would end up at the cabin again. And if it rained again... Sasuke pushed open the door.

He ended up buying some new shingles and another axe, since the one at the cabin was on its last life. He also bought various tools: a sander, a hammer, nails and screws, a level, among other things. If he had learned capentering he might as well put it to good use. He was tired of sitting on the floor all the time.

* * *

The plants were still alive when he finally wandered back. Or at least he hoped so because he was no plant expert. The next couple of days he went to work. First he fixed the roof in case it rained again. Then he decided he might as well fix the siding too. He made new siding from the trees. Sasuke fixed the floorboards on the inside and cleaned better. He made a small table and a couple chairs to go with it.

He had to make a couple runs to a nearby village for more supplies: more nails, a measuring tape, tiles for the kitchen. He started to trade wood for the supplies since he was running low on money. He also made a few chairs and sold them just because he could. It was easy and he got more money than he would just for wood.

"Here again?" The lady behind the counter asked. Sasuke was in town again for more nails. He didn't say anything and set a bag of nails on the counter. The lady wasn't fazed. She was used to it by now. "We have a special today," she smiled and accepted Sasuke's money while placing a small packet by the nails. "Every purchase gets some free forget-me-nots! They're easy to grow, just plant them straight in the ground."

Sasuke stared at the seeds and then stared at the smiling lady behind the counter. Her smile was a little unnerving at how it didn't falter no matter how rude Sasuke was. It also said that if Sasuke didn't take the seeds and at least try to grow them she would personally make sure he paid double for anything he bought in that particular village.

Sasuke broke his stare, nodded, and left with the seeds and nails. He definitely wasn't intimidated.

* * *

Sasuke set the seeds on the counter next to Naruto's plants and forgot about them as he continued with the repairs on the cabin. He had better things to do than to plant flowers. But soon after almost electrocuting himself installing an electric generator, Sasuke ran out of things to do. He only lasted two days sitting around the cabin with nothing to do before he picked up the seeds and headed outside.

The clearing had been cleared of the fallen trees. There were large patches of dirt and dead grass where the stumps had been uprooted. Sasuke went to one particularly large patch of dirt and scarttered the seeds. They didn't cover much land, about half of the patch. Sasuke went inside an filled his largest container and began the tedious task of watering the seeds. It didn't take very long.

Sasuke looked around at the other patches of dirt and decided that he would need to make a trip to the village.

* * *

"What can I do for you?" the lady behind the counter smiled.

"Do you have any more of those seeds?" Sasuke asked straight to the point. He didn't want the transaction to last too long.

"Of course. We have a whole selection. Come thise way." Sasuke tried to ignore the smirk on the lady's face and followed.

Sasuke ended up buying more forget-me-nots, some sunflower seeds, and some mystery color tulips. All easy plants to grow the lady had said. Also very beautiful apparently, not that Sasuke cared.

As the lady was ringing Sasuke up, she paused and went to the back room. When she returned she help, what Sasuke elegantly thought, was a purple cloud on a stick.

"This is on the house since you bought so much. It's a branch from my lilac bush outside. It's easy to take care of, just keep it in a jar of water and then plant it in the ground when you want to grow a bush," she said as she handed the lilac over. "In flower language it means 'first love'." The lady gave Sasuke a teasing wink. Sasuke barely concealed a shudder and hoped she wasn't trying to imply something.

Sasuke quickly gathered the rest of his purchases and left the village.

Back at the cabin, Sasuke planted a patch with tulips and a patch with sunflowers. He added more seeds to the patch with the forget-me-nots and stuck the lilac branch in the middle. Sasuke stepped back to admire his work only to see dirt and a purple cloud stick. Sasuke sighed and went inside.

* * *

Time passed. Sasuke tended to his small garden everyday; watering and weeding. It reminded him of when he was younger, when his team was doing those first few missions together. How Kakashi sat to the side and read porn, how Sakura tried to stay clean in hopes of impressing him, how Naruto didn't know weed from plant, how he tried to ignore them all. During those times the burning under Sasuke's skin ceased. A sense of peace overwhelmed him to the point where he would catch himself sitting in the dirt with a handful of weeds staring at nothing. Sasuke would finish and the burning would come back, but it wasn't like he cared too much. The burning kept him alert.

Sasuke grew worried as the days passed and nothing changed. The patches remaided just dirt. The days became shorter, the air colder and soon the first frost hit. The lilac branch in the middle of where the forget-me-nots were planted, froze and died. It was official. That first year, nothing greew.

Winter was long and cold.

* * *

Sasuke wiped his forehead with a cloth in hopes that it would prevent the sweat that was threatening to drip into his eyes. The humidity had risen almost unbearably in the last couple of days. Sasuke couldn't wait for the rain to come. The plants needed it. He needed it.

Earlier that spring, when the last of the snow was melting and the ground began to thaw, Sasuke noticed some green leaves poking out of the ground by his tulip bed. He didn't know what to do with them, so he just let him grow and by the end of spring, a small part of the clearing was covered with pink and yellow and white tulips.

After a trip to the village and finding out from the shop lady that tulips grew annually, Sasuke went out of his way to buy a how-to gardening book.

Now it was the middle of summer and the clearing had a decent sized garden on the opposite side of the cabin. The only things Sasuke had planted were the tulips from last year, a patch of forget-me-nots, and a row of sunflowers. They were all easy flowers to plant and take care of, said the gardening book.

Sasuke pulled one more weed before deciding that outside was too hot and heading into the cabin for the day.

* * *

Thunder crashed so suddenly that Sasuke jumped up, flinging the covers of his futon off in a blur. The two kunai he kept under his pillow were in his hands and ready to slice or be thrown. The pitter-patter of rain followed the thunder. Wind howled outside. Sasuke had to wonder how all the noise didn't wake him earlier. Sasuke relaxed when there was no immediate threat and began to sink back down into his futon. He caught sight of Mr. Ukki. It was thriving, the leaves had grown large and a few more stems popped up in the soil. Sasuke would have to get a bigger pot for it soon, or maybe could plant it outside in the garden…

Sasuke bolted out the door, dropping the kunai and not bothering to put on any shoes or protective rain gear. The wind pushed him every which way, the ground was muddy and slippery, the rain pelted and chilled him. Sasuke ran to the back of the cabin where he had built a small storage shed. From there he grabbed a large tarp and some stakes. By the way the rain was pouring, the wind was blowing, Sasuke knew that the flowers wouldn't stand a chance if he didn't do something to protect them. He had read it in the book.

Sasuke walked with the tarp and stakes in his hands. The wind caught the tarp and made walking forward ten times harder. Sasuke pushed on.

When Sasuke reached the edge of the garden he realized that it wasn't a crash of thunder that woke him up. He dropped the stake and tarp. The wind immediately blew the tarp away in some direction. The stakes clattered together and sunk in the mud shortly followed by Sasuke as his knees gave out. A tree had fallen on the garden.

A scream bubbled up from deep with Sasuke and tore from his throat. The simmering under his skin was boiling and spilling over, burning him inside out. Not in destruction this time but in despair. The lid was gone, cracked, broken. Sasuke's safe world away from all the emotions he avoided was torn apart. The illusion of calm couldn't be held up any longer. Tears mixed with rain as everything he denied feeling came all at once.

Naruto was gone. Naruto was dead. Death was permanent. He told himself that they were barely even friends, but he was just lying to himself. It was never like that. He remembered when he was younger, just becoming a team, when they were getting closer together, but then he fucked up. And he kept on fucking up until he couldn't fuck up any more because Naruto was _dead_. Dead, dead, dead. Dead like his family. Dead like Itachi. Dead like the flowers crushed under the tree.

He didn't know what was worse: Knowing Itachi's final words or not knowing Naruto's. No, actually he did know because with Naruto he had to guess and he was known for being unpredictable.

The worst was the regret, the guilt, and the longing. That little bit of emotion that he held for Naruto that wasn't hate, wasn't anger, wasn't disgust was unraveling. It was an emotion that he said he would never feel again after what happened with his family, with his brother. It was poison searing through Sasuke's veins, cutting his breathing short, forcing tears from his eyes. A poison with no antidote because Naruto was dead and there was nothing he could do about it.

And in the rain, crying, screaming, despairing, Sasuke was truly alone.

* * *

Sasuke woke up cold and muddy. He felt empty and tired. But it wasn't bad. A weight was lifted but it was one he had carried it for so long that he didn't quite feel right with out it there any longer. Clouds were still in the sky but they were the white fluffy kinds. No threat of rain. Sasuke didn't want to look at the disaster that he knew was the garden. What would he do now? It was too late in the season to try and start over. He didn't know if he had the patience to wait another winter. Should he just pack up Saboten and Kiko and Mr. Ukki and settle somewhere else, forget about the cabin and it's cursed land that refused to grow damn flowers? When had Sasuke even settled? Why did he always come back to the cabin hidden in the woods? When did he start to think of it as his...home?

Sasuke sighed and turned towards the garden. He should at least remove the tree. What he saw made him pause. Yes more than half the garden was destroyed by the tree and storm, but the destruction had missed the row of sunflowers. They were a little battered from the storm but they still stood strong facing the east towards the sun peaking through the clouds. Water from the rain sparkled on the petals and leaves of the forget-me-nots and tulips that were missed by the tree. The garden was damaged, but it was still hanging on to life.

Sasuke sat at the edge of the garden. Pressure behind his eyes and the tightness in his throat told him that he was going to cry again. He didn't know what was wrong with him. The side of him that told him to not feel anything, to be emotionless was gone. Washed away in the rain, boilded over until Sasuke was just an empty pan.

And maybe, just maybe, he was happy.

* * *

Two bowls sat on a small table in the middle of a field of sunflowers. One bowl was empty and the other was filled with now cold ramen. Wind blew and the giant flowers swayed. The sky was bright and dusted with a few cottony clouds.

Sasuke sipped at his tea in a chair by the empty bowl, basking in the sun. A small, peaceful smiled graced his lips. The wind blew as if it were laughing and surrounded Sasuke with the scent of sunflowers.

* * *

" _Hey Sasuke. You know whatever happens, please try to find something that will make you happy. You've spent so long hating that I want you to know what the feeling I'm feeling right now is. Do it for me 'kay?"_

* * *

 **A/N:**

Scrapped Titles: Searching for Happiness, Atonement

Saboten means cactus.  
Kiko probably means 'tree child'.  
Mr. Ukki is the name of Kishimoto's plants.

Lilac: first love  
Forget-me-nots: remember me forever  
Peony: healing (I was gonna have Sasuke plant some of these but upon looking up their care, I knew he'd kill them)  
Sunflower: adoration  
Tulips: caring (pink), forgiveness (white), hopelessly in love (yellow)

Thank you for reading.


End file.
